monster hunter

Dragged onto the Bandwagon

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I’ve made friends with some beautiful, amazing folks through playing video games. Sometimes this is a double-edged sword however. For example, over the past few weeks a couple of my friends have engaged in a relentless peer-pressure campaign to get me to play the new Monster Hunter with them. It’s not that I don’t want to play the game, I desperately do. However, money, time, and personal reasons meant I was planning to wait for the PC release. Unfortunately waiting was making me miss out on all the fun of roaming around murdering lizards with my friends right now. So I have been deluged with videos of palicos being adorable and stories of monster slaying and nonsense.

Anyway last night the dam finally broke and I found myself logging in and being overwhelmed by character creation (how do I choose what my adorable kitty pal will look they’re all so cute???) and weapon options (I don’t know what most of these do and I don’t have the patience to try them all before I go murder monsters). Thanks Bel.

I only got to play for a few hours but I can already tell this game has the potential to reach obsession levels. It seems to have a good mix of satisfying gameplay, crafting, and cosmetic goodies. The biggest thing I’ve killed on my own was a great jagras so I’m obviously still figuring things out but it was incredibly satisfying. I’m learning how the monsters work and I’m getting better at my chosen weapon (bow). It felt great to go from taking over half an hour to kill one while getting intensely beat up by it, to tracking one down and taking it out in a few minutes without taking a scratch. If the game keeps that core loop of learning and progress I will definitely be in for the long haul.

I can’t wait to really sink my teeth into this game over the weekend and start tackling some bigger prey.

AggroChat #184 – A Very Unstable Show

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Featuring:  Ashgar, Belghast, Kodra and Tamrielo

aggrochat184_720

This week we record an unstable show…  and by that I mean a huge chunk of the conversation is about the adventures of Tam, Ash and Kodra in drafting the new magic “un” set.  From there we talk a bit about Unstable being Legal in Commander for a small amount of time and the ups and downs of Iconic Masters.  We talk a bit about the Curse of Osiris DLC for Destiny 2 and the ups and downs of it.  This weekend Monster Hunter World Beta is available on the Playstation Network so we talk a little bit about it and Monster Hunter in general.  We talk a bit about Reigns: Her Majesty and Fire Emblem Heroes 2.0 release.

Topics Discussed:

  • Magic The Gathering
  • Unstable Draft
  • Iconic Masters
  • Destiny 2 Curse of Osiris
  • Monster Hunter World Beta
  • Reigns: Her Majesty
  • Fire Emblem Heroes 2.0

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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On Triple-Carting

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If you’re aware of Monster Hunter, you’re probably also aware of Dauntless, a very similar PC game that’s coming “soon”. Dauntless was on display at PAX South, where I got a chance to try it.

Unfortunately, my first chance was pretty short. Like Monster Hunter, too many defeats for your team means your hunt can come to a premature end. This number seems to be 5, which sounds less punishing than Monster Hunter’s 3, but came extremely quickly. When you lose all of your health in Monster Hunter, you get a nice long while to think about your mistakes as you get sent back to base camp (in a cart, hence, “carting”) and have to run back to the party. Dauntless allows you to revive teammates on the spot, which leads to two problems: you can go down while attempting this revive, and the newly-revived, not-at-full-health teammate can go down again almost immediately. It sounds like getting back into the action faster is an improvement, but it doesn’t go well with the game as currently structured.

On Triple-Carting

It’s not all bad. Areas seem to be a lot more open than Monster Hunter, the hunt area is contiguous instead of divided into subzones. Weapon selection is very limited right now (the demo only had 3 options), but more are on the way. The dodge roll has a lot more invulnerability, so it’s easier to use aggressively. Monster design is excellent, which is probably one of the most important parts.

I think Dauntless has the potential to be a good game, but in a demo setting with absolute beginners it didn’t feel great. I’m curious to see if they stick with this format, or adopt something like Monster Hunter Online, where downs only count against you personally (you get kicked out of the hunt if you go down 3 times). We’ll see what develops.

On Triple-Carting

by

If you’re aware of Monster Hunter, you’re probably also aware of Dauntless, a very similar PC game that’s coming “soon”. Dauntless was on display at PAX South, where I got a chance to try it.

Unfortunately, my first chance was pretty short. Like Monster Hunter, too many defeats for your team means your hunt can come to a premature end. This number seems to be 5, which sounds less punishing than Monster Hunter’s 3, but came extremely quickly. When you lose all of your health in Monster Hunter, you get a nice long while to think about your mistakes as you get sent back to base camp (in a cart, hence, “carting”) and have to run back to the party. Dauntless allows you to revive teammates on the spot, which leads to two problems: you can go down while attempting this revive, and the newly-revived, not-at-full-health teammate can go down again almost immediately. It sounds like getting back into the action faster is an improvement, but it doesn’t go well with the game as currently structured.

It’s not all bad. Areas seem to be a lot more open than Monster Hunter, the hunt area is contiguous instead of divided into subzones. Weapon selection is very limited right now (the demo only had 3 options), but more are on the way. The dodge roll has a lot more invulnerability, so it’s easier to use aggressively. Monster design is excellent, which is probably one of the most important parts.

I think Dauntless has the potential to be a good game, but in a demo setting with absolute beginners it didn’t feel great. I’m curious to see if they stick with this format, or adopt something like Monster Hunter Online, where downs only count against you personally (you get kicked out of the hunt if you go down 3 times). We’ll see what develops.